God Comics & Theodicy

July 3, 2011

First the obvious: whomever thought this up is clearly a little disturbed, but…

It does raise some questions from yesterday’s post The Problem of Theodicy. Since WWII and the Holocaust many valid questions and concerns have been raised concerning theodicy relating to those events.

For instance, during his regime there was an assassination attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler. He was in a war room and a briefcase was smuggled in by one of the conspirators with explosives in it. The briefcase was placed under a table near Hitler, but coincidentally one of the other soldiers moved the briefcase behind a leg on the table with his foot. When the bomb exploded the leg on the table shielded Hitler and his life was spared so that he could continue his program of murdering thousands of Jews daily. I’m not sure what the exact number is but many innocent lives would have been spared if Hitler died on that day.

So we have the three legged stool. Which leg do you shorten to exonerate God? Free will? Omniscience? God’s mysterious ways? Or would a ‘good’ god ala YHWH of Hosts in the OT stop an evil as insidious as what poisoned the German state during WWII? Can a good god stand on the sidelines while millions are murdered and still be considered good?

That’s the thing isn’t it? The not helping. I’m mostly OK with accepting the free will explanation but it’s one thing for someone to get into trouble by their own free will, it’s something else entirely to refuse to help them and then claim that helping would violate their free will.

If someone doesn’t look where they are walking and falls down a deep hole, that’s a situation their own free will got them into. If I walk by and that person begs me for help and I just refuse for whatever mysterious reason then that makes me a dick

You could say that God was trying to stop the evil – but those who professed to be His followers were ignoring His leading. Many who professed to be Christians were supporting the Nazi and Aryan movements. (Like the “Kill the Ayrabs” Western Christians of today)

I find it the same with those suffering from starvation or clean water access today (or any other basic lack). They do not have to be, and would not be dying or doing without if the people who professed to be followers of Christ sacrificed and worked hard to help others instead of “needing” $300 hair cuts, bottled water and tattoos.

I put the responsibility on us instead of God. It starts from how involved we get in learning and following the truth, who we choose (actively or passively) to lead, and how we stand against laws or actions that we know are wrong.

Like Germany with Muller as Bishop – we in the West aren’t too many steps from our own one church evil Bishop, having more restrictions put on clergy and having to be politically reliable – and thus becoming totally impotent to affect any change when we see wrongs, then blaming God instead of our own selfishness and apathy.